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Get the biggest and beefiest one you can afford. Then you can do aluminium stuff.

And use it to make itself stronger and better!

"Where can we get hold of a Vincent Black Shadow?" "Whats that?" "A fantastic bike," I said. "The new model is something like two thousand cubic inches, developing two hundred brake-horsepower at four thousand revolutions per minute on a magnesium frame with two styrofoam seats and a total curb weight of exactly two hundred pounds."

My next step is mill, was going to mod a seigX3 but thinking i will just bite the bullet buy a decent sized one from the start and turn it to a CNC mill from there

Cheaper/smaller/lighter starting point I guess.
I've long contemplated the ~$1000 CNC aliexpress router (3 axis), even though I know an RongFu 40 mill would be a better starting point, except for the whole really needing to convert to ballscrews and linear bearings instead of acme thread and greased V-ways.

"Where can we get hold of a Vincent Black Shadow?" "Whats that?" "A fantastic bike," I said. "The new model is something like two thousand cubic inches, developing two hundred brake-horsepower at four thousand revolutions per minute on a magnesium frame with two styrofoam seats and a total curb weight of exactly two hundred pounds."

Router because i tend to do non-automotive stuff too. Being able to machine out flat sheet is advantageous for me.

Thinking MPCNC at this stage, its simple enough, expandable, and wont cost a huge amount with the spares I already have. Biggest bit is that i can build it to suit the 600x600mm footprint that i currently have in the cramped garage, and then if it gets a lot of work out i can just upsize it by buying new rails and longer Cat 5 cables. No need to do anything else.

Looking at that MPCNC stuff - it doesn't look like it's got the rigidity to be particularly usefull cutting alloy - small cuts at low feedrate it'll probably be ok. There's just not alot of rigidity in the printed components.
Absolutely fine for MDF and plastic sheet though.

"Where can we get hold of a Vincent Black Shadow?" "Whats that?" "A fantastic bike," I said. "The new model is something like two thousand cubic inches, developing two hundred brake-horsepower at four thousand revolutions per minute on a magnesium frame with two styrofoam seats and a total curb weight of exactly two hundred pounds."

Iguess it depends what you'd be happy with. notice the half cut path in the foreground - i think he might have tried too big a cut.

"Where can we get hold of a Vincent Black Shadow?" "Whats that?" "A fantastic bike," I said. "The new model is something like two thousand cubic inches, developing two hundred brake-horsepower at four thousand revolutions per minute on a magnesium frame with two styrofoam seats and a total curb weight of exactly two hundred pounds."

I've been making plenty of parts for my rx7 on my router. Most I've needed are bigger than a 330x330mm footprint and that pass depth is painfully slow but that's the trade-off for the price I guess. I like that it's pretty quick and straightforward to design 2D shapes, I wouldn't know where to start with designing for 3D printing.

These are some 5mm engine lifting brackets I made from scrap (click for video). This is running fairly slow and shallow because small parts are hard to hold with a vaccum bed.

A large bed opens up a lot more options though (polycarbonate window set)

Hmm will be watching this ive been throwing ideas around for a diy plasma / router table and to able to do 1200 by 1200 so be able too use a full sheet without having to cut it down to use in the machine.

Hmm will be watching this ive been throwing ideas around for a diy plasma / router table and to able to do 1200 by 1200 so be able too use a full sheet without having to cut it down to use in the machine.

But I never made it to a completed machine before owning a couple of real cnc's.

I got the design 70% done, the control box completed and able to move 4 servo motors and control the spindle motor from a gcode file, and acquired most of the parts. I like to think I might finish it one day, we'll see...

I reckon im goign to build the MPCNC to start with and then see where to go from there. Worst case it will have cost me about $50 in non-reusable parts (and even then many of those are reusable). Just some filament, 608RS bearings and about $20 worth of steel tubing.
If the MPCNC doesnt do what i want it to do then all of the electronics and stuff can go into a DIY XCarve, which from all the videos will absolutely do what i want. Plus at the least the MPCNC will be able to make MDF templates for the XCarve brackets, and if not that then i can get them laser cut.

Off the top of my head... Avoid grbl. As far as I know you cannot adjust feed rate on the go which sucks. Also check out the clearpath servos. They take a step and direction signal like a stepper but straight from the controller board, no driver. They look impressive. Quite expensive, but no driver required.

Hey Mopar, no fans in there but I've already gone past wanting to use that box. It's really good quality IP6 but not really big enough. I've got a bunch of stock to make up a new box that will have plenty of forced cooling and incorporate the CNC controller (smoothie board) and a single board PC to run Mach 3.